A Year of Change

I was going to Denver but then we postponed it as James lawyers hadn’t sent back his new trust, which he needed for us to pick up some hunting stuff we ordered months ago. Then around 10:40, he texted and said, “I got it, can we still go?” It was later in the day than I usually like to head out to Denver, but with the week ahead, I said, “Ok, I’ll leave in 5 minutes.” I picked him up a little after 11 and we were at Mile High a little after 1 in the afternoon.

It took us a bit over two hours to do all our paperwork before we were out of there. My trust has been on file for years as I’ve been through this multiple times before. He had too but had to do a new trust since he is now officially divorced. Anyhow, they were waiting for us and ready to help us out and we were in and out as fast as possible.

We stopped at Edwards Meats on the way home for sandwiches and I ran into the dad of one of Jag’s old classmates from when we lived in Denver. We had a little drama as a few people in the place recognized James, but it wasn’t too bad. The kid who was checking us out asked if we went to the Metallica concert a few weeks ago, and I said “yea, it was so so.” He looked at me puzzled and asked James if he could get an autograph, which James politely declined but said, as he always does, “Sorry, but I’ll shake your hand, what’s your name bud?” The kid introduced himself and was polite and thrilled. By now a guy who worked there was standing by the door as we were leaving and James just fist bumped him and the guy said out loud, “wow, awesome”.

I sometimes forget just how freakin famous he is. It goes with the territory though. It’s funny as people look at me, when I’m with him, trying to figure out who I am, which is no one, right! Nothing new, just another normal day when you’re out in public with him. We headed for home and decided to stop at Marty’s for a smoke with him. After leaving, it took us almost two hours to get from Frisco to Copper which is like 6 miles, as there was a fatal rollover accident. So, we didn’t get to his house until 8 and I finally made it home by 8:30. Man was I tired.

We’ll go back down Friday to pick up out stuff if we get approved by then. I told him, “Dude, we’re leaving at 7 am on Friday” This way we’ll be back by noon depending on Friday “get out of Denver” traffic. We always have fun and map out the next ten years of our lives when we take long road trips. Things like should we sell and move to which show in Europe should we come over for to hang out, to crap with our families and other personal stuff.

Lori works in Edwards today. Ty’s already gone. I have a call at 8 which is in 50 minutes and then will head out to the gym. Nice and beautiful out this morning. I woke up at 4:30 and then fell back asleep until 6:30. As I said, I was tired. Driving will do that to ya. That’s it, have a good day, GB.

Bastille Day in France. It’s basically our July 4th. It’s a big deal over there. We’ve been to a few Bastille Day parties over the years which are always fun.

We mostly hung out yesterday. We made it to the gym and then stopped to pick up a burrito for Ty who was driving up from Denver. He made $600 bartending! Sweet.

Hot today, mid 90’s in Denver. Cooler up here, thankfully. We might head out to Denver this morning as planned or might delay it until tomorrow. If we go today, we’ll leave later as James is waiting to get his trust paperwork back from the lawyers. He texted late last night.

I’m getting all the details for our trip set up. We leave two weeks from tomorrow. We’re excited to go. Weather looks good over there right now. Murielle has us set up with everything. More to come as we get closer. Should know the rest of our details, like our hotel in Paris, later today. I’m pretty good at organizing things. All our flights, international and within France, are set up. I’ve reserved parking at DIA, have River watering the plants and putting the trash out, and am getting my work done for my two meetings. Only thing left is to book the TGV (high speed train) from Bordeaux to Paris the morning of August 5th and then our driver to the airport on the 7th. Need to finalize our hotel first so they know where to pick us up. Lori wants to go to the Rodan Museum, and we might go to another one. Once I know, I’ll get VIP entry and private tours set up for.

Lori works in Vail today. I have more calls and computer work. Ty works at 7 am I think. I’ll know more in 20 minutes at 6, if his music starts, ha.

Some fires around the State. None near us right now. The few small ones we’ve had, they managed to contain and put out quickly. There’s one over by the Black Canyon in Gunnison that’s pretty good size and a few on the front range. Hopefully no new ones come up. The rain is welcome but sometimes lightening comes with it, which can then start a fire. Most of the Country is in far worse shape than we are. Endless rain in Texas, on top of the rains that caused the horrible floods, bad weather and rain back east, and endless heat and humidity down south. The best weather in the Country always seems to be in the mountain States of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Of course, in winter, we get snow and cold temps, but considering the trade off, we’ll take it.

That’s it, heading out for a walk here at 6am. Have a great day, God Bless.

Ok, yesterday it was great to see the kids, and we got a little pre-trip shopping in for Lori, so it was a good day. It was a busy day though with lots of driving and being on the go. Today, we’re just hanging here at home. I’m off to Denver tomorrow with James and Davy and then home for the week, hopefully.

We made it to Golden around 1:30 to meet Jag and Ava who drove down from Boulder. We handed off Jag’s car and they drove back to Boulder to drop it off while Lori and I headed for the mall. She found some cute pants, shorts and a vest and some really cute, special edition, Golden Goose tennis shoes. Meanwhile, Ty was at the party. He arrived around 1:30 and worked until 9:30! Cha Ching! That’s a nice $600 for him. Of course, everyone loved him and was amazed and how friendly and helpful he was, on top of being a great bartender. A gay couple, who are Jeff and Tina’s neighbors, want to hire him for their 30th anniversary party, ha. Some guests who we’ve known for years were so happy to see the boys and told us what a great job we did as parents, as they’d known the boys since they were really young, like 5 and 7 years old. They also said Lori and I haven’t changed at all. Don’t know about that, as 20 years is 20 years, but nice of them to say.

Jag and Ava made it to the party maybe 40 minutes before us. When we arrived, we sort of just sat over in the comfortable outdoor furniture and visited mostly with ourselves. We were waiting and waiting for the BBQ brisket and other stuff, (which turned out to be sausage and ham) to be ready. Finally at 6, it was done. Problem was, it was bad. Not just bad, but really bad. Even Jeff said, “no give me that back off your plate, it’s way too dry” and threw half the brisket away. What a bummer. Anyhow, Jag, Ava, Lori and I decided to run over to Cherry Creek Grill and eat. We had a nice dinner and then Lori and I headed up the hill while the kids went back to Boulder. We made it home right at 9:30. Ty was supposed to be done at 8 but as I said, worked until 9:30.

The kids are moving into their apartment on Tuesday. We’re buying them a table and giving them some bar stools in the garage our neighbor gave us when they moved. Julie, Ava’s mom, arrives Monday to help.

7am now, time to get going to the gym. It’s nice up here and probably 60 degrees right now but going to hit 90 today. As I said, we’re looking forward to doing nothing today.

Oh, Lori’s former PA who we sent to the Metallica concert, passed away two days ago. So sad, but Lori’s really happy we bought him tickets as he went with his brother and family and had a really good time. Everyone thought he was doing better but that day, I think Friday, he stood up, got really dizzy, went down and passed away, all in an instant. Erich was a great guy and kind person, so sad, RIP.

That’s it, have a great Sunday and God Bless.

Last night was the fourth week of 11 weeks of our local rodeo, held every Friday night. It’s always a good turnout. It’s sort of funny as there’s not a lot of cross over between the crowd that goes to the rodeo and the so-called Vail crowd. We were with Davy and Abby as it was River’s first barrel race. She’s 11 and such a sweet kid. In rodeo, they have events called the slacks, for beginners. This could be for barrel racing, calf roping, whatever. This all happens before the main rodeo and events start.

Here’s Lana, a 14-year-old mare, who is an experienced barrel horse, and then River.

In their run, Lana pretty much went wherever she wanted to, with River holding on for dear life, trying to lead her around the barrels. River was clearly upset when the horse missed a barrel and ran towards us at the gate to get out of the arena. She was almost in tears and yelled, “open the fucking gate”! We told her, “No, go back and go around the last barrel”, which she did. We, Lori, Davy, Abby and I, were laughing at this sweet little 11-year-old, that just told us, “Open the fucking gate’! To her though, it was no laughing matter. She thought she failed miserably, when the truth was that for her first barrel race ever, just staying on this horse, which is an athlete and knows her job, was a big win. We told her how proud of her we were, but she was so upset and crying for a good 10 or 15 minutes, poor kid. Abby wanted to console her, but Davy and I said, let her be upset and tell her good job and that she’ll do better next time. Failure is a life lesson, and she will do better next time. After a bit, she was fine and gave us big hugs thanking us for coming. We stayed for another hour or so before heading home.

Big news of the day is Lori, and I are going to France July 29th. We’ll fly into Paris, then down to Marseille where we’ll spend 3 nights or so at this incredible resort owned by a Swiss family, who also own a vineyard, and the BMC bike brand, which is a billion-dollar company with a team in the Tour de France. After that, we’ll drive over to my other estate, Plaimont. It is 5 hours west and we’ll be there for a couple nights and then fly up to Paris for a few nights. I hooked up Davy’s friend and his wife at the Metallica concert a couple weeks ago and Davy said he was going to call him and try to hook us up at the Four Seasons in Paris. Terry, who I gave the VIP passes to, runs the Four Seasons in Denver. I found a great boutique hotel in Paris for $700ish a night, but if we get comped at the Four Season, we’ll take it. We’d never book it, as it’s whopping $2500 a night! Either way, Lori is super excited. She deserves this trip. Airfare wasn’t too bad, about $5k for both of us, after I used some credits we had, for First Class. We were going to do France on our October Italy trip, but it was just too long of a trip, so after talking with Murielle, my partner in France, and checking everyone’s schedules, I decided to just go now and get my two visits in France out of the way. This is the good part of my job as I’m treated like a Prince and wined and dined and catered to like a rockstar. To be clear, not like James, but really damn well. It’ll be a great trip, and I decided to just go, so Lori could go when the weather is great. October in France is not as fun as July and August, and this was Lori gets to go to Europe twice. I texted Holly and Tom and told Holly that she and Tom should meet us in Paris, as we know she loves everything about France. Not sure if they’ll go, but we’d be happy to have them. We’ll still be going to Portofino and Venice, Lake Como and other parts of Italy, the first ten days of October. It’ll be way less stressful now that we don’t have to go to France on the way. Time to brush up on my French.

Today we’re off to Jeff and Tina’s BBQ in Denver, which starts at 3. We’ll hang for a couple hours and then drive home. Jag and Ava are meeting us, and Ty is bartending the party. Should be fun. Weather looks so so, with storms, hmm.

That’s it for today, time to get moving, have a great weekend and God Bless.

Busy day, in fact, they’ve all been busy lately. I had four calls yesterday by noon. Two with France, one with Italy and one with Seattle. All went well and everyone is excited and on board with my vision and plan to dramatically change things.

We might go to France in a couple weeks. We’re working on the schedules now. Need to make sure everyone is available. At 3 I headed over to the cabin to see the guys. James told us all about the trip to the UK for Ozzy’s last show and other memorable parts of the tour including the Denver shows. Great to see him. He and I are going to Denver next Monday to get our cans for our rifles.

Then at 6:45, Tim and Taylor came over for dinner. We all had a great time and hung out until around 9:30. They’re super fun and close friends.

This morning Lori and I are going to the gym and then it’ll be back on the phone. Tomorrow, we have the BBQ in Denver at Jeff and Tina’s. This is the party Ty is bartending. We’re going to drive Jagger’s car down along with the truck, and he’ll pick it up from us at the party. The party is from 3 until 8. I imagine we’ll arrive between 3 and 4 and leave by 6 to get home by 8 or so.

That’s it, time to get moving, God Bless.

Sometime around 3am we got a little bit of rain. I was up at 2:30 and 3:30 as I fell asleep pretty early. My head was spinning with things having to do with the Company and my calls this morning, which start at 7. I had been leaving Jag’s windows cracked open on his car, so it didn’t get too hot inside, so at 3:30am, I went out and shut them.

I made it to Denver around 8:30am and had a productive trip with stops at Whole Foods, Target, Key Bank, Edwards Meat Market (Tim and Taylor are coming over for dinner) and of course, Cigars on 6th, to see my buddy Max. It was 10:57am and 90 degrees when I left town. When I made it to Edwards, I stopped to get Ty a new pair of tennis shoes for work and then dropped them off to him along with some other stuff he needed from Denver. Once home, it was more time on the phone, which I was also pretty much on for my entire drive.

Four calls this morning starting at 7 and then I should be done a bit after 12 noon. We have cigars at 4ish and then dinner with T & T around 6:30.

I’m mapping out our trip to Europe and am debating whether to skip France on the front end of the trip as right now I have us gone for two whole weeks. This includes 3 nights in Portofino and 3 nights in Venice. Scatter around two-night stays in 3 other places and a couple one-night stops and you get up to 13 or 14 nights pretty quick. While a work trip, this will be centered around pleasure for Lori and I. We’ll be traveling in style and staying at the top 5-star hotels in each city. Think Jeff Bezos with a few lunch or dinner meetings thrown in. Lori deserves the break and if you know anything about me, I always travel First Class. Luisa says I’m like a Prince, ha. More to come. Luisa will accompany us as she’s my right-hand person/executive assistant, that provides me with all the data I need, takes all the notes and coordinates all the meetings. I told her to bring Steve, her husband, who we’ve known ever since they met. The four of us will make a good group. It’ll also be much better for her to have Steve with her than having it be just three of us, as then she’d be like a third wheel. More to come as we get closer.

Jag and Ava are still packing away getting ready to move. Tom crushed it at the bank last quarter which is always welcome! Great job!

5:40am now so time to get moving. Have a great day, be well, stay safe and God Bless.

Here’s a rainbow outside this morning!

Looks like 100 degrees in Denver. Again, cool up here. The doors are open as I write this at 5:44am, Ty’s getting ready to leave at 6, and Lori’s making him breakfast. I had a bunch of good calls yesterday and have two today, one at 9 and one at 5. Tomorrow, I start at 7 and go until around 10, I think. My calendar changes daily, sometimes hourly, so I need to check.

Think I’ll run down the hill this morning and go to Office Depot and a few other stops, maybe the cigar shop. Think we’re going to order a 2026 Suburban. The ordering window opens tomorrow on the 2026, and production starts around the first of September, meaning delivery around mid-October. The new bill that passed allows for 100% deduction of up to $10,000 in vehicle interest on any vehicle assembled in the U.S. That’s a nice perk. There are other benefits for someone my age (notice I didn’t say senior!) such as a few deductions that double and a $6000 credit against my social security. We still pay too much in taxes, but everything helps.

Yesterday we had the alarm company out for our annual testing of the CO2 and fire alarm monitors. All was well. Important to make sure those are in working order, right? Today I’ll set the dates for our Europe trip in October. Looks like we’ll be in France for about four days and then Italy for maybe seven. I’m cramming to get up to speed on my French. Should probably brush up on my Italian too.

Looks like that’s it for today. 6am now so time to move and groove. Have a great day, be well, stay safe and God Bless.

Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from about 7am until noon, I have calls with our Producers in Europe. I need to get up to speed and reset the relationship with everyone, now that we let Brian go. I’m finding out all kinds of things that I thought were handled, that obviously were not. You always uncover some, so called, hidden bodies, when someone leaves a company. I am kind of shocked at the lack of follow through though on some easily handled tasks. No worries as I’m getting things straightened out. I spend most of the afternoons writing up plans and direction for things I learned on the calls. I only have two today, two tomorrow and then four on Thursday. In between my calls, I add a call to one of my employees or a distributor. Things should settle down in a couple weeks, at least from being on the phone all day.

Ty golfed after work yesterday and is working at 7 this morning. I’m going to try to get to the gym, but my first call is at 9. It’s cool in the mornings and hot in the afternoon. No rain or bad weather up here though, so it’s all good. Looks like the front range has been getting some on and off bad weather.

Jag and Ava are packing. Ava’s grandma bought them a really nice couch. We’re in town Saturday for a BBQ at Jeff and Tina’s and the kids are coming too. Ty is bartending the party for $75 an hour! He’ll be there from 2 until 8 meaning he’ll bank $450!

That’s it, hope everyone is well, have a great day and God Bless.

It’s hot during the day, but cool at night. This helps a lot as with our windows open, it helps cool down the house.

Lori is in Vail today and I’m working around the house with a bunch of calls and emails. As you know, I’m in the middle of big changes professionally, which is long overdue. It’s a lot of work and a challenge but going better than anticipated. I always say while change can be good, it’s never good initially as there’s always going to be some bumps and bruises. Personally, we’re doing well. 2025 is a much better year, so far, than 2024. It also is shaping up to be a great year for the boys.

Looks like about 90 days until we’ll be in Europe. I need to lockdown the dates and details asap. Hope to do that this week.

6am now, time to get moving. Have a great week, be well, stay safe and God Bless.

Happy Sunday! It’s the end of our three-day weekend. With the third of July being last Thursday, it feels like it’s been a four-day weekend. Lots to do starting tomorrow.

The title above is not about the store but about eating only whole foods. The majority of the stuff out there is processed in some way or form. Nothing new, I was just looking for a title for the day, ha.

Ty and Will went fishing yesterday afternoon but didn’t catch anything. He said he needs some help, so we’ll go out and see what he’s up to. Jag is coming up sometime this week to get his car. We’ll be glad to get it out of the driveway.

Looks like rain and some severe weather down on the front range. Nothing like that up here.

Good call yesterday with one of my former employees and his partner about joining the Company. Think things might work out.

We bagged the crawfish party as we decided we really didn’t want to go, so we didn’t. These days we’re adamant about only doing things we want. Time is the most precious thing you have when you get older. We do have 24 cupcakes Lori made to take that need a home! I won’t be eating them as they’re definitely not a “whole food”.

6:24 now and Ty’s still sleeping. We’ll be heading to the gym soon. Then I have around 50 emails to go through just to get ready for tomorrow.

The battery on our CO2 alarm died yesterday so the alarm went off for what seemed like an hour, (was probably 10 minutes) until the alarm company explained how to remove the battery to stop it. They’ll be out tomorrow to fix it.

That’s about it, have a great Sunday and let’s get ready for a big week! God Bless.